I streamed a bunch of this last night. It has a few interface quality of life issues and it doesn't have the tongue-in-cheek humour and stellar soundtrack of the Tropico games but this is a really cool and different take on the city builder concept. My stream was over 3 hours and I wanted to keep going.

From what I've read, the reason he's suing them is that his partnership contract with Twitch specifically said they had to provide a reason for why his channel was banned and they never have. There's probably more to the story than that though, there always is.

I've not paid attention or cared much for these awards for years and just rolled my eyes this year when they included Rami Ismail. He claims to be half of Vlambeer but does very little development. His partner does most of the work and stays out of the limelight with Rami basically just goes to conferences and lectures other devs on everything they're doing wrong because it doesn't align with him politically. And of course, taking credit for half of what his partner does. On this year's roster is also Tim Schafer, whose complete ineptitude at business and smarmy attitude towards his backers, has demonstrated in big neon letters, everything that can go wrong with crowdfunding. This latest witch hunt is just proof that these awards are as politically driven as any other modern award show.

This game looks rad and I really want to cover it. It's a shame the guy who runs New Blood Interactive is a massive toxic asshole. After he proceeded to mock me to his followers on social media because I misspelled his name when asking for press code, I can't cover it fairly any more. He's trying to be all "punk rock" with how he runs his company, which really just means he wants an excuse to act like a prick but claim it's part of his brand.

Wallshadows wrote on Dec 5, 2017, 08:11:Never shopped at their retail outlets but if it was anything like their online platform then I'm not that upset. Awful pricing and dodgy "free" shipping deals put them waaaaay down my list when it came to shopping for components.

What's hilarious is how their sister site, DirectCanada, was better in nearly every way while still using the NCIX infrastructure from warehouse to payment processing to shipping.

Yep, I've never had a good experience with NCIX, going back to when they weren't on the ropes. And from what I'm reading, they're screwing everyone with this bankruptcy. A bunch of employees lost pay and were never formally terminated, tons of people placed orders that never shipped and they're being instructed to file complaints with their credit card companies and a bunch of systems that were in-store for repair are just sitting there and people can't get to them. Same thing happened when PC Cyber here in Ottawa went under a number of years ago. Scumbag management.

People joke about Best Buy but I've consistently had better service from them than I ever have from places like Amazon Canada or indeed, NCIX.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Dec 4, 2017, 06:47:It's worth noting that Brad Wardell is famous for sexually harassing a female employee, sending her a 'sexual purity test', making unwanted sexual contact, telling sexist and vulgar jokes and violating her private life. When she filed a lawsuit he then manufactured a counter-suit to destroy her credibility. It ended with a behind the scenes settlement that involved the woman publicly apologising but it's pretty obvious he paid her off.

Unsurprisingly for someone obsessed with sexual purity he is also a devout conservative famous for boycotting UPS after they withdrew advertising from Fox News due to Glenn Beck making racist and derogatory remarks about Obama.

Put simply he's a bit of an arsehole and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the allegations made by the original developers are entirely true.

The case wasn't settled, it was dismissed with prejudice. Meaning that she lost due to lack of evidence. A number of other Stardock employees also came forward to say her claims was baseless. By all accounts, she lied to try to destroy someone who didn't advance her in the company at the pace she wanted. But of course, the ethics-bereft the games press that don't believe in due process parroted the lies because it made for good clicks. Several of the so-called "journalists" who spread that garbage have since apologised for getting it wrong. Most of them haven't though because hey, admitting you're wrong is a weakness to them and most of the games press wouldn't know what journalism is if it bit them in the ass.

And while I very much disagree with Brad Wardell's political views, if you're going to boycott every company that employs someone who dares to disagree with you, you should probably find another hobby because nearly every game has someone of that sort involved.

I was reading a couple of stories today that said Netflix suspended the production to consult with the cast and crew. Sounds like they're trying to figure out if people still want to work with him while they figure this out. Can't believe how quickly this moved.

Mashiki Amiketo wrote on Oct 22, 2017, 19:54:it's likely about to get more interesting since the accusations are flying hard and fast against game journos at kotaku and polygon(current and former) of doing the same thing as Weinstien and Tyler.

You got any reputable links for that? I'm most certainly no fan of either site or many of the people who write for them but this is the first I've heard of this (other than the Nick Robinson thing, which has been quiet since first being revealed.)

I think PewDiePie's a fucking idiot and a blight on the YouTube community. He doesn't know or doesn't care the power and influence he has and that the media (wrongly) paints all of YouTube with his brush. He needs to fucking think before he speaks.

That said, what Campo Santo did is childish and stupid. Unfortunately, it's also 100% legal. Nonetheless, it's still a blatant abuse of the spirit of the DMCA and sends an epic chilling effect because this is just the beginning. Now, it's filing a DMCA because of a bigoted remark in a stream. What happens when that becomes filing a DMCA against people like me who (rightly) criticise Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn? What happens when an indie dev DMCAs their game on a channel because that YouTuber gave a bad review to a game made by their friend (remember, Fair Use critique only applies to the video of the friend's game)? What happens when devs decide to just start using the DMCA as a meant to punish channels that are generally fair and balanced but also run by someone who supports Trump? Remember, at least when it comes to Let's Play, it's 100% legal for them to do so, statement on their web site or no. If you think this newly discovered power won't be greatly abused in the current climate of indie devs that see it as an ideological mace, you're very naive.

I try to separate art from artist whenever I can. While I may end up playing Campo Santo's next game, I can tell you what I won't bring it near my YouTube or Mixer channels with a 10 foot pole, nor will a lot of other creators. That doesn't help them, nor does it help Campo Santo.

I ended up hitting a game breaking bug in Syndrome today (which by the way, don't believe the Steam reviews, it's a buggy mess, not a good game and not even that scary) and decided to finish up by playing through Stories Untold. For a largely text based game, it scared the crap out of me way more than Syndrome did. It's on sale this weekend and I highly recommend it.

They already have. It's the garbage "Epic Launcher", also the only place you can buy Epic titles, just to keep in mind the next time Sweeney whines about other storefronts being anti-competitive (which he also does frequently.)

Ozmodan wrote on Aug 19, 2017, 14:45:Sad state of patents when someone can patent a 1 click operation. What a bunch of idiots reside in the patent office. Bezos should be banned for life from ever getting a patent again.

Don't blame Bezos. He's just playing by the rules as written. There are so many bad patents out there. Blame the Repubs for defunding the patent office.

That you play by shitty rules doesn't excuse you from being shitty yourself. No one forced him to.